This journal started out, in January 2007, as the Newham Council CIO's Blog for ICT staff, and its source is still Newham's Intranet.
Since April 2008 I have been seconded for the majority of my time as President of the Society of IT Management. Among my aims, as Socitm's President, are to foster greater transparency and accountability in the operation of the Society's business, and a President's Blog is an obvious tool towards the achievement of these goals.

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Thursday 22nd May

There was full attendance for today's board meeting, with a really packed agenda. David Houston, attended on behalf of the affiliates, to report upon the work undertaken on our behalf, and offer advice on fiscal development. Melanie, who looks after our finances was also in attendance and will attend all meetings as financial adviser, together with Pam, as Secretary and advisor on company matters.

The minutes of the meeting will be published in the membership area of Socitm's web-site, when agreed. In the meantime, some of the decisions that I thought noteworthy were:

We will ensure full attribution of costs for all services to ensure we have a proper picture of revenue contribution (radical stuff, eh!), but any profits are for the benefit of the wider society – not ring-fenced.

We agreed the "policy" on Socitm policy development, which includes a 30 day period of member consultation / feedback, and this, will now be published via the web-site.Initial policy proposals will focus on Information Sharing, Security & Trust, Convergence Vision, Customer Data Integration & Green IT.

We will finalise the work on a new membership model, undertaken by the Member Services Group, and publish that to the membership, as soon as possible, for consultation and feedback, with an invitation to organisations to pilot new arrangements.

The National Advisory Council will be established as a matter of priority. Initially this will be based-upon representation from each Socitm region, but we will invite the nomination of representatives from different parts of the public sector, and with different specialisms.

We agreed an excellent suggestion from Steve Palmer – to ask each Graham Williamson Challenge award winner to serve as an adviser to the board in the year following his or her travel year.

The new Consulting contract principles were agreed and the board delegated finalisation of the arrangements to enable the new terms to be implemented from 1st June.

We agreed to explore extending similar operating principles to our other main commercial service – Socitm Insight.

A host of other priorities were agreed in areas like Vision, Values, Strategy and Ethics, and our approach to private sector partnership. Concerning the latter, the board delegated short-term, tactical, arrangements, and requested a paper on a strategy for the whole Society, rather than the piecemeal approach that has largely operated in the past. Criteria for invitations to the annual President's Dinner, which we need to send pretty soon for this year's event, in September, were finalised.

In the evening I went along to a consultation on the future of the CW500 Club. I thought there may be some insights to be had on member requirements that could apply in Socitm!

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About socitm

The Society of Information Technology Management was founded in 1986 as the professional association for ICT managers working in and for the public sector.

Members are drawn primarily from local authorities but also from the police and fire services, housing authorities and other locally delivered public service.

Managers or consultants from organisations supplying ICT products and services to the public sector, or which support public services in other ways, may also join the Society.

With over 1900 members from 550 different organisations including 98% of all UK local authorities, Socitm provides a widely respected forum for the promotion, use and development of ICT best practice. It also plays a leading role in the implementation of local e-government in the UK.

The Society is a significant provider of advice and guidance on ICT and e-government to local authorities. Socitm offers a growing range of services including publications, conferences, events, training, research and consultancy.